A Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Starting as a Rogue Cultivator

"However, I will give you priority to participate in the sect competition; if you fail to achieve good results and win the Foundation Establishment Pill, I will also give you an extra one. My disciple will never be treated unfairly."

This statement also carries a hidden meaning.

Wang Li looked even more embarrassed (but inwardly remained unmoved).

"By the way, young man surnamed Zhang, I'd like to buy one of your ordinary hundred-year-old spiritual herbs for my disciple for 200 spirit stones. Are you interested? Don't worry, it won't affect your chances of obtaining a Foundation Establishment Pill. It'll even give you a small profit."

When Master Chen speaks, what can Senior Brother Zhang say?

All I could do was smack my lips, my mouth full of bitterness.

In the end, he was the only one who gained the least because of his previous arrogance towards Wang Li.

So, why did Old Master Chen buy this spiritual herb for Xu Da?

Since Xu Da had nine plants, even if he divided them in half, he would still lose half a plant, which wouldn't be a perfect outcome. Therefore, by replenishing the supply with ten plants, the problem would be easily solved.

Wang Li now has exactly twenty plants, and his purpose is obvious.

Therefore, this disciple surnamed Zhang had no choice but to suffer in silence.

Chapter 49 Preparation

This trip to the forbidden area, including the time spent going and returning, although only eleven or twelve days, felt like several long years to Wang Li.

The calculations and considerations involved consumed a great deal of his energy.

Therefore, when he took over the Linggu Plantation again, he saw the complicated expression on Xiao Chen's face, which was a mixture of regret and resentment, and couldn't help but step forward and give the boy a warm hug.

Well, and then I was promptly rejected.

Seeing this, Uncle Chen, though still looking displeased, subtly showed a hint of relief and satisfaction in his eyes.

"Kid, you'd better watch yourself."

Before leaving, Uncle Chen still couldn't help but let out a heavy snort to express his dissatisfaction.

"Senior Brother Wang, I'm leaving now. Don't forget my kindness after you reach Foundation Establishment!"

(Ah tui)

Xiao Chen also left with his Uncle Chen.

"Respectfully seeing off my senior uncle, junior brother Chen, take care."

After seeing the two off, Wang Li lay down and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, a sound and innocent sleep. It was as if all the scheming, intrigue, and struggles of the world had instantly vanished from him.

That sleep lasted until the afternoon of the next day.

Upon waking, Wang Li quickly sorted through his spoils, transplanted the spiritual herb seedlings he had obtained from the forbidden area, and began to plan for the future.

Let's talk about the loot first:

1. One golden treasure chest and five iron chests containing many ancient items.

The golden treasure chest, in particular, can indeed evade the detection of spirit-smelling beasts and isolate itself from the divine sense of Core Formation cultivators. The restrictions on it are so powerful that unless one sees it with their own eyes, a sweep of divine sense will not reveal it at all.

The golden treasure chest is definitely a cheat code.

2. Five types of exercises.

The Three Talents Body Refining Technique, the Wind Feather Scripture, the Heavenly Fiend Treasure Book, the Righteous Qi Technique, and the Six Harmonies True Skill.

【Three Talents Body Refining Technique】: A body refining technique, recorded in one of the jade slips in the golden treasure chest.

The stone hall happened to have the auxiliary elixirs needed for cultivation.

The so-called "Three Powers" refer to the three elements of essence, qi, and spirit in the human body, which are fundamental to being human. Cultivation using the Three Powers as a starting point can comprehensively improve physical constitution, including strengthening qi and blood, purifying essence, expanding the dantian, transforming tendons and marrow, revitalizing the physical body, strengthening internal organs, improving concentration, and enhancing mental strength.

Unfortunately, the part recorded in the jade slip can only be cultivated up to the Nascent Soul stage.

It must be an incomplete manual.

Wang Li even suspected that Nangong Wan, who was in the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm, was able to withstand the Soul-Sealing Curse cast by a mid-stage Nascent Soul expert, not only because of the characteristics of the Su Nu Reincarnation Technique, but also because this technique had a certain miraculous effect.

【Wind Feather Scripture】: Also known as the Feather Transformation Scripture, it is a top-tier cultivation technique obtained from a golden treasure chest that can directly lead to the late Nascent Soul stage. Unfortunately, it requires a wind spirit root cultivator to practice. The technique itself is practically useless to Wang Li, but the two secret techniques within it are quite suitable for him after he has reached the Foundation Establishment stage.

One of them is called "Wind Transformation Technique".

It is a kind of escape technique that allows one to blend into the surrounding breeze. The speed of the wind determines how fast the person can move.

The second one is called "Wind-Gathering Technique".

Similarly, practitioners can blend into the surrounding wind vortex. The less noticeable the wind is, the less noticeable the person blending into it will be.

[Heavenly Fiend Manual]: A top-tier cultivation technique utilizing fiendish energy. The more fiendish energy one gathers, the faster the cultivation speed, with virtually no bottlenecks. It's tailor-made for certain demonic cultivators. Unfortunately, it only reaches the early stage of Core Formation; the rest of the jade slip containing the technique is "blank." However, it did provide Wang Li with two decent techniques, or rather, let alone killing abilities.

One of them is called "Blood Fiend Divine Light," which can melt one's own fiendish energy into a special beam of light. It possesses the ability to corrupt many spiritual substances and is specifically effective against conventional Five Elements magic. It can be used both offensively and defensively. Especially when used defensively, the Blood Fiend Shield formed is comparable to a tortoise shell.

The second technique is called "Heavenly Fiend God's Seizure," a secret art that gathers one's own fiendish energy to form a special oppressive aura. Its sustained range of output weakens the fighting spirit of other cultivators within its area of ​​effect to varying degrees, depending on their cultivation level and life experiences. Furthermore, those subjected to prolonged oppression develop a deep-seated "fear" within their ideology, causing them to cower before even engaging in battle when facing the caster; the remaining courage to confront the caster is only possible when their cultivation level is equal or even surpasses the caster's.

This secret technique is specifically designed to steal a person's fighting spirit.

【The Righteous Qi Technique】: A Confucian classic, without ranks, suitable for practitioners of any level. It doesn't focus on achieving immortality, but only on cultivating the righteous qi within one's heart. Those who diligently practice it year after year can greatly mitigate inner demons, dissolve uncontrollable malevolent energy, and prevent their mind from being corrupted by malevolent or demonic forces.

It played a significant role in the ancient demonic calamity.

[Six Harmonies True Technique]: This is a rudimentary method of fusion. Based on the principles of the five elements' mutual generation and restraint, the evolution of the five elements into ice, wind, thunder, darkness, and light, and the reverse derivation of yin and yang, it was jointly created by several cultivators in the Refining Void stage who ascended from other realms. Currently, it is suitable for cultivating all five spiritual roots simultaneously, and the technique only involves the Core Formation stage. At most, it can be used for Core Formation.

The cultivation methods for those at the Core Formation stage and above are not perfect and require later practitioners to deduce them themselves.

The advantage of this technique lies in its ability to more effectively mobilize the spiritual roots within the body to aid the cultivator's practice. Furthermore, it can maintain a high cultivation speed even in the mortal realm where spiritual energy is scarce.

What makes you say that?

This brings us to the mystery of "spiritual roots".

As everyone knows, to cultivate immortality, one must have spiritual roots. Spiritual roots are divided into single spiritual roots, known as "heavenly spiritual roots," "true spiritual roots" with two or three spiritual roots, "pseudo-spiritual roots" with four or five spiritual roots, and "alien spiritual roots" formed by the fusion and mutation of multiple spiritual roots.

Cultivation with a single spiritual root is the fastest.

how so?

Because of a single spiritual root, one is not affected by other spiritual roots and only absorbs specific, single-attribute spiritual energy from heaven and earth, thus cultivating at a much faster pace—often several times or even ten times faster than cultivators with three spiritual roots.

Cultivators with four or five spiritual roots are called pseudo-spiritual roots because their spiritual root attributes influence each other, and the various mixed spiritual energies absorbed into their bodies also affect each other. In addition, each attribute of a pseudo-spiritual root is not "full," which prevents them from utilizing the absorbed spiritual energy to the maximum efficiency. It would be strange if they could grow fast.

What does "full" mean?

Dividing ten into one part, and dividing ten into two, three, four, or five parts, the former results in fullness, while the latter can never be fully formed. Furthermore, considering the mutual influence of the latter types, and the greater the number of spiritual roots, the more severe the influence, the more complete the calculation becomes:

The cultivation speed and effects of dual spiritual roots are often only one-half or one-third of those of single spiritual root cultivators. For three spiritual roots, the difference ranges from one-fifth to one-tenth, depending on whether the chosen cultivation method is the most complete of the three spiritual roots.

The four spiritual roots—those who know, know.

The five spiritual roots are in a terrible state.

Therefore, those with pseudo-spiritual roots have three main directions for accelerating their cultivation.

Firstly, it replenishes the spiritual root of the main cultivation technique; this is the purpose of the Heaven-Mending Pill.

Secondly, it absorbs only a single type of spiritual energy, reducing the impact of mixed spiritual energy, which is precisely where the value of the spirit stone is reflected.

Third, enhance the spiritual power of the supply side, using "quantity" to achieve the goal of "quality," a representative example being eating elixirs like candy.

In the mortal realm, it is common for cultivators to practice techniques of a single attribute.

For example, the Azure Origin Sword Technique is a pure wood-attribute cultivation method. Cultivators with a single wood spiritual root can maximize the potential of their wood spiritual root, achieving twice the result with half the effort and progressing rapidly. However, if one uses a spiritual root of other attributes, or a pseudo-wood spiritual root cultivator: the former cannot cultivate it, as exemplified by the unfortunate Zhang Tie; the latter can cultivate it, but only with half the result, as exemplified by the vast majority of Foundation Establishment cultivators in Huangfeng Valley who have practiced the Azure Origin Sword Technique.

It is obvious that the Azure Origin Sword Technique was created only for those with wood-type spiritual roots and cannot allow those with mixed spiritual roots to fully utilize their abilities.

For similar reasons, several minor leaders among the ancient ascended cultivators read extensively, perusing numerous ancient texts from various races in the upper realm. They gathered the wisdom of many and prepared to create several cultivation techniques suitable for cultivators with multiple spiritual roots, capable of utilizing multiple spiritual roots simultaneously.

The Six Harmonies True Skill is one of its products.

Unfortunately, the demonic calamity was too devastating, and they perished one after another before they could fully mature. If they had been given more time, or if they had reached the Integration stage and perfected their Core Formation or even Nascent Soul stage cultivation techniques, it might not have been impossible.

Among the group of Nascent Soul stage cultivators who descended to the mortal realm to stabilize the demonic calamity, one of them happened to be a disciple of one of these individuals.

The Six Harmonies True Skill was an inconspicuous relic he left behind.

Getting back to the main topic, let's talk about what we gained.

3. Four talismans.

There are four types: golden mace, guqin (a seven-stringed zither), longbow, and golden bell.

They are all powerful weapons.

4. Fifty-six mature medicinal herbs and plants.

Not one more, not one less.

The spiritual herbs specifically used for refining Foundation Establishment Pills alone are more than enough to prepare one hundred batches of the raw materials needed for alchemy. Wang Li himself felt he had gone too far; he had probably collected seven or eight tenths of the spiritual herb seedlings for nothing, wasting them all. The remaining auxiliary herbs could also be cultivated within a month. In other words, after a month, he would be able to attempt to refine Foundation Establishment Pills.

5. Several ritual implements.

We acquired six top-tier magic artifacts and dozens of mid-to-high-tier magic artifacts. If we can find a safe and stable way to sell them, we can easily get seven or eight thousand spirit stones.

Among them, the one he favored the most was naturally the high-quality defensive Hades Shield.

Once I've reached the Foundation Establishment stage and have more time, I'll definitely go to the Tianque Fortress Market to get my hands on that core shield and unleash its true power.

6. Spirit Stones.

There were more than thirty mid-grade spirit stones and more than 1,300 low-grade spirit stones.

Wang Li himself didn't kill that many people; it was mainly the disciples of various sects fighting and robbing each other. He just used the full map cheat to pick up a lot of leftovers.

7. Monster materials.

The complete corpse of the top-tier demon beast was divided into six parts, and some materials from higher-tier demon beasts were also collected.

If a suitable weapon refiner can be found, these materials are enough to forge about ten ordinary top-tier magic weapons.

8. Items found in the golden treasure chest, such as golden tokens, ancient elixir recipes, and black stones.

There's not much to say about the golden token. We'll try again during our next trip to the forbidden area to see if it can bring us any benefits from the core area.

There are more than twenty ancient pill formulas. If he can find all the corresponding spiritual herbs, it will be enough for Wang Li to use until he reaches the Nascent Soul stage.

The black stones and bottles and jars offered no clue whatsoever, so they had to be set aside for the time being.

9. Inscription Techniques and Sealing Techniques.

Before obtaining the Great Evolution Technique and the Puppet Manual, Wang Li planned to study them, thinking they might come in handy someday.